Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday ridiculed Harsimrat Kaur Badal’s allegations of the Congress government in the state disrupting her poll rallies, and said people were venting against “the sufferings” meted out by the SAD on them for 10 years.
Captain Amarinder said he was surprised that the Akali leader was facing protests only in some villages and not all over the states, and said that the anger of people who had been victimised for 10 years by the Badals was now finding voice.
“The fact that Harsimrat was prevented from entering a village in her own constituency only showed that Karma was catching up fast with the Badals, who had made the people of Punjab shed tears of blood over their decade-long misrule,” he said.
Trashing Harsimrat’s charges that his government was misusing official machinery to “sabotage” her campaign, the chief minister said the Akalis had ruined their own prospects with their misdeeds, including their attempts to “polarise the people with sacrilege cases”.
“They had put the entire official machinery in motion prior to the Assembly elections but had been routed in the polls by the wrath of the people,” he said, adding that the same people had not forgotten or forgiven the Badals for the devastation wreaked on them over a decade.
“Harsimrat had failed to do anything for any section of Punjab’s people even as Union Minister in the Modi cabinet, which the people of Bathinda could see,” he said.
“She has the audacity now to seek votes from those very people whose lives she and her family had ruined,” he said.
That Harsimrat was prevented from entering a village to address an election rally was clearly a sign of the anger of the people.
“Did she really expect the people to welcome her with open arms after what the Badals did to them,” Captain Amarinder asked, adding that both Bargari and the farmer suicides extremely grave issues, for which Punjab and its people could never forgive the Badals.
Elections are won on performance, which his government and the Congress in Punjab had already showcased, the Chief Minister said, advising Harsimrat and the rest of the Badals to start packing their bags.
“Your sins are catching up with you and you will soon have no place to hide,” he warned them.